FlippED: Do People Agree With Making Meme Pages Private On Instagram? Our Bloggers Fight It Out

FlippED is An ED Original style wherein two bloggers come together to share their opposing or orthogonal perspectives on an interesting subject.

I realize that this is nothing but an excellent thought out marketing strategy for professional as well as small-time Instagrammers – Blogger Aaroosh’s perspective

I’m a technologically backward person if that’s what you call it. I generally use Instagram or any other social media platform as a matter of fact just to scroll through thousands of memes. But to my misery, even that seems difficult now.

Over time I’ve noticed a trend of some of biggest memes pages on Instagram like greatercomedy, publity, dank memes and more – locking their accounts, forcing non-followers to request access in order to view their content.

Publity has forced me to increase my following count on Instagram.

Although it’s very irritating at first, I tend to take sides with the content creators. I realize that this is nothing but an excellent thought out marketing strategy for professional as well as small-time Instagrammers to stay afloat in a heavily crowded market on an increasingly volatile platform.

It’s true, that you have to undertake a whole process of following the account and then checking out the meme you were looking for. Although it’s true, that the buzz ends, you’re immediately drawn on to ten new memes that the page has posted which makes you stay on their platform.

In the end, it’s all business. Everyone ranging from a blogger to a meme account would want more followers. If your account is public, people would always see your stuff, but they will not feel the need to follow you. So basically, a lot of meme pages aren’t growing even after generating tons of traffic.

We, the millennials are very lazy when it comes to most things. You must have noticed that just like following someone, there’s also an extra notification that pops up if a fan tries to unfollow you. Unlike a public page, private pages ask fans if they’re really sure whether they want to unfollow you.

“Something that may seem funny in a moment’s time, may not seem funny when viewed later” – Blogger Jhanvi’s perspective

Recently, there has been an increase in the number of things that annoy me easily. Privatization of meme pages on Instagram has quickly become one of them.

Something that may seem funny in a moment’s time, may not seem funny when viewed later. And that’s exactly what happens when memes are DM’d to people who don’t follow that particular meme account.

This way is nothing but a way to annoy us.

Thanks to pubity and schoolfeelings for the delayed gratification. Apart from the sheer effort, it takes to follow meme accounts for every single meme that is DM’d, it is unethical to follow private meme accounts due to the following reasons.

Why Meme Accounts Were Turned Private

The only reason meme pages are privatized, is to increase the number of followers they have. This is immoral on many levels. For one, according to a source, for every meme that is posted, meme pages earn up to $30,000. Such a humongous amount of money is generated from advertisement revenue.

What is upsetting is not because of the amount of money they earn, but the matter of how they earn. Most of these meme giants do not create their own content. Most of their content is a repost, or in other words, plagiarised.

In fact, most of the posts are viral content. So what is seen on those pages isn’t even unique, it is the same post which circulates in everyone’s feed.

In support of those artists whose work is stolen from them, meme accounts should be unfollowed and boycotted.

It is wildly unethical to steal other people’s content, all the while profiting obscene amounts of money from it. This is why I find the strategy of privatizing meme accounts extremely overrated and immoral.

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Ranked as one of the #Top10 Youth Blogs worldwide*, awarded the BEST BLOG at India Digital Summit Awards 2019 by IAMAI & Times Now and covered on Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM, ED is a generalist youth media publication with a team of bloggers trying to do smart stories with wit & wisdom. It’s where Indian Millennials comment on news and stories around them, an opinions place by and for really young people.